I have a slightly older system that can run both IDE Drives and SATA drives.

I am trying to install mint on one of the IDE Drives, but I was going to zero it first.

I like to do

blkid

or

fdisk -l

to see what the system see's BEFORE I do anything.the strange thing is that it won't list them.

I am booting from a 'Live' USB stick.I can "Mount", navigate, and view the files in Live Mint I Os I just booted from, but terminal and the above commands refuse to list them.

I've looked around and can't seem to find much. The only thing that I THOUGHT might be part of the problem is that in the BIOS I can enable IDE, and, Sata controllers and list which is Primary, secondary, or just leave it in an 'auto' configuration. I have disabled the SATA control (just for the moment) and have only 1 IDE drive connected, and listed the IDE controller as Primary and set the drive to "Master".

Still no luck.

Does anyone have any ideas?

The MOBO is an ASRock AM2NF4G-Sata2

Last edited by HilltopsGM on Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yep - I've tried that.Actually it was the first thing I tried (sudo blkid - when booting from a live cd)I signed into root as simply an attempt to make it work AFTER installing the OS.It is installed and it still doesn't work...I just get a flashing cursor - the same as what I get from booting from the live image.. . . actually what I get is a flashing cursor for 15-20 seconds, and then it just stays solid (I am not sure if that is an indicator of anything).

df -h was able to show me what you have above from the INSTALLED OS, but;it does not register anything other than the USB stick that I am currently booting the live image from; the HD is not in the list.

The only thing that I THOUGHT might be part of the problem is that in the BIOS I can enable IDE, and, Sata controllers and list which is Primary, secondary, or just leave it in an 'auto' configuration. I have disabled the SATA control (just for the moment) and have only 1 IDE drive connected, and listed the IDE controller as Primary and set the drive to "Master".

Still no luck.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Sorry the only thing I can think of is make sure drive is listed in bios first. Should show up there when bios polls it.Also note that on older systems the back of the ide drives had a jumper for setting as Primary,Secondary or Cable Select.There is usually a sticker on the drive that shows jumper configurations..

... You say an older computer, but did not provide any hardware data: mainboard, graphics, nic, ahrd drives (modeles/brands), any of which (data..) would have helped..

If you are using an older system, likley means BIOS controlled/setup, so you can set all devices to auto mode, and look ate what the machine detects when the bios starts loading, it gives you the list of hardware detected devices--you should alos be able to get into the BIOS and set hard drives to manual mode (LBA setup: Logical Block Address, for larger hardd drives or just as a general setting): when you jump screens (go to another bios setting), the hard drive devices should appear--if they don't check you hardware, specifically any interconnects (cables to whichever hard drive, as well as any jumper settings (CS: cable select, historically an IBM develped abomination, to prevent users needing to set jumpers or MA (master) Sl (save) or some auto mode--you may have the manual for the jumpers, if not they can be searched for on the internet--you should basically also reset the power plugs for the drive: any interconnect (ribbon) or power plug may be bad (have a poor connection), so replugging may make it work, otherwise it becomes a matter of elimination to find good circuits

DrHu wrote:... You say an older computer, but did not provide any hardware data: mainboard, graphics, nic, ahrd drives (modeles/brands), any of which (data..) would have helped..

You are correct, that was my fault.Hardware Info:Mobo: ASRock AM2NF4G-SATA2Using onboard video, Audio, nicCPU: AMD Sempron 3000+HD: IDE Seagate 320GB 7200 Set as "Master" and plugged into the correct end of the IDE Cable.

DrHu wrote:If you are using an older system, likley means BIOS controlled/setup, so you can set all devices to auto mode, and look ate what the machine detects when the bios starts loading, it gives you the list of hardware detected devices

The Drives are being detected properly.If they were not then I would have thought that the installation would have had trouble.It didn't. It installs perfectly. Partitions mount perfectly.Everything works except the Terminal command line codes mentioned above.It makes no sense.

DrHu wrote:--you should alos be able to get into the BIOS and set hard drives to manual mode (LBA setup: Logical Block Address, for larger hardd drives or just as a general setting): when you jump screens (go to another bios setting), the hard drive devices should appear

Are you saying I SHOULD manually set the drive in Manual Mode (LBA)?

DrHu wrote:--if they don't check you hardware, specifically any interconnects (cables to whichever hard drive, as well as any jumper settings (CS: cable select, historically an IBM develped abomination, to prevent users needing to set jumpers or MA (master) Sl (save) or some auto mode

It is just a standard installation - single drive, I DO have the jumpers set to master, but I don't think that that would affect Terminal commands from 'seeing' the partitions. Do you?

DrHu wrote:--you may have the manual for the jumpers, if not they can be searched for on the internet

All Mobo Jumpers have been checked against the manual - which I still have. The are in the right spot.

DrHu wrote:--you should basically also reset the power plugs for the drive: any interconnect (ribbon) or power plug may be bad (have a poor connection), so replugging may make it work, otherwise it becomes a matter of elimination to find good circuits

I have disconnected and reconnected them a number of times, and used different molex power plugs. Still not working.Besides, if it was that, wouldn't it have caused problems with the installation of the OS? That works perfectly as far as I can tell - mounting, dismounting partitions, etc, etc.Again, just the terminal commands don't work.

DrHu wrote:The dd command you used is doing exactly what it indicates, wiping the hard drive

..... that really is my point. I can issue the command - The system KNOWS where to go when I give it the

I had to go into the BIOS and make sure that the "FLOPPY DRIVE" was Disabled!That's right - make sure it is not set to 1.44 or anything else (and why not - I don't think there is anyone really using that any more - but by default it is usually on).

I came across the solution completely by accident.

I was moving on and was trying to install on one of the partitions my Win 7 OSThe damn thing was hanging (or so I thought) at the setup screen.Nothing was happening. It would just appear to stop dead. (The same symptoms that appeared when I'd type in the -- sudo blkid -- command in terminal, it appeared to stop dead)I'd type the command in terminal, the cursor would flash for a couple of seconds and then just stop flashing - like nothing was going on.

When searching for the solution for the Win 7 OS install hanging issue, I found that others had the same problem.The solution to the Windows 7 installation hanging was to disable the Floppy Drive in the BIOS.As soon as I did that the installation went off without a hitch.